NOW here’s the thing. I’m a 32-year-old man who likes good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll.

But, sadly, hardly any of the bands I like can sell two million albums to teenagers any more.

So ONE DIRECTION have earned almost the entire day in Bizarre page about their new album — and this is why...

This is the equivalent of a locked-in blinking. "I'm only writing about them because they're popular."

Obviously, there is a question hanging here: if Smart really wants his sort of band to sell more, why doesn't he give them the coverage rather than One Direction? (The answer, you'd guess, would be that he needs the bands more than they need him.)

So, with the grin on, what's Gordon's verdict on the record?

The headline is the sort of thing that could go in an advert:

Take Me Home is 1Dful

Wundyful? Full of wund?

Gordon bottles the challenge in the end, passing over to a younger member of his team, Tom Thorogood, to trot out a couple of sentences about each song:

Fast-paced and McFly-alike. Could be a future single.

... but not before Gordon does rather a deft dance of seeing how far he can push damning with faint praise before the One Direction fans would notice:

The album sounds almost identical to the last one but kids will love it — and some of the writers are talented folk.

I'm not Gordon's biggest fan, but that is a great bit of writing: like a man examining a steaming turd he's found on his doorstep saying 'well, whoever did this is at least enjoying a healthy diet'.